This thesis examines the connection between colonialism and violence during the early years of English settlement in North America. I argue that colonization was inherently destructive because the English colonists envisioned a comprehensive transformation of the American landscape that required the elimination of Native American societies. Two case studies demonstrate the dynamics of this process. During the Anglo-Powhatan Wars in Virginia, latent violence within English ideologies of imperialism escalated conflict to levels of extreme brutality, but the fracturing of power along the frontier limited Virginian war aims to expulsion of the Powhatan Indians and the creation of a segregated society. During the Pequot War in New England, elements of violence in the Puritan worldview became exaggerated by the onset of societal crisis during the Antinomian Controversy. The resulting climate of fear unified the colonies and created an ideological commitment to the genocide of the Pequots.